It’s quite the compliment considering it comes from Vogue entertainment editor Jill Demling, who happens to be a sports junkie. Funny, because the Oklahoma City Thunder star, as NBA fans have come to learn over the past couple seasons, happens to be a fashion junkie.

That’s why he was in New York for Fashion Week and sitting courtside, if you will, at Friday night’s Rag & Bone Show with Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, only the most powerful person in fashion and who seems to have taken an interest in the fashion stylings of the eclectic point guard.

“Russell is part of a newer generation, players that take fashion as a real badge of cool,” said Jim Moore, creative director for GQ in a New York Times article that chronicled Westbrook’s whirlwind fashion tour. “For years and years, you had that Pat Riley and Michael Jordan idea of off-court style; they were all going to the same tailors and they were almost getting too fancy with it.”

Westbrook says he got his fashion sense from his mother Shannon. He said she always dressed nice and wanted him to as well. Her fashion sense rubbed off, he said.

“The shows, as an experience, have been amazing,” Westbrook said, noting that stepping out of the basketball scene and meeting designers “was refreshing.” … “It was a learning process for me, to be able to see the shows from a different point of view.”

For Westbrook, who continues to rehab from knee surgery in April, this jaunt to Fashion Week wasn’t just about being seen and wearing ultra-hip outfits. The article says he’d one day like to have his own line of clothing.

Maybe he can start with a re-design of the Thunder’s road unis. That could be interesting.

I just read another article about Kevin Garnett buying 2 suits for any rookie that joined the team. The article quoted KG as saying “if you want to be a pro, you’ve got to dress like one.” Westbrook does play like a pro, but he dresses like a 13 year old boy.

The average American’s sense of style is with European (and especially Scandinavian) measures absolutely down the bloody drain. Ill-fitting stuff, look at the suits the coaches are wearing, they are absolutely swimming in those trousers. So it’s funny when you American fashion “connoisseurs” even bother commenting on Russel Westbrook’s style, because like it or not, he does his own thing, which you simply don’t have the guts to do.